Matthew 13, 31-35 + CSDC and CV

(CV 20b) It is Christ's charity that drives us on: “caritas Christi urget nos” (2 Cor 5:14). The urgency is inscribed not only in things, it is not derived solely from the rapid succession of events and problems, but also from the very matter that is at stake: the establishment of authentic fraternity. The importance of this goal is such as to demand our openness to understand it in depth and to mobilize ourselves at the level of the “heart”, so as to ensure that current economic and social processes evolve towards fully human outcomes.

Social doctrine: a duty to denounce the presence of sins of injustice and violence

CSDC 81c This social doctrine also entails a duty to denounce, when sin is present: the sin of injustice and violence that in different ways moves through society and is embodied in it [120]. By denunciation, the Church's social doctrine becomes judge and defender of unrecognized and violated rights, especially those of the poor, the least and the weak[121]. The more these rights are ignored or trampled, the greater becomes the extent of violence and injustice, involving entire categories of people and large geographical areas of the world, thus giving rise to social questions, that is, to abuses and imbalances that lead to social upheaval. A large part of the Church's social teaching is solicited and determined by important social questions, to which social justice is the proper answer.

Notes: [120] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 25: AAS 58 (1966), 1045-1046.  [121] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 76: AAS 58 (1966), 1099-1100; Pius XII, Radio Message for the fiftieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum: AAS 33 (1941), 196-197.

(Mt 13, 31-35) The Church, sign and defender of the transcendence of the human person 

 [31] He proposed another parable to them. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. [32] It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the 'birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.'" [33] He spoke to them another parable. "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened." [34] All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, [35] to fulfill what had been said through the prophet: "I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation (of the world)."

CSDC 51. According to the plan of God brought about in Christ, there corresponds to the identity and mission of the Church in the world “a saving and eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in the next life”[60]. Precisely for this reason, the Church offers an original and irreplaceable contribution with the concern that impels her to make the family of mankind and its history more human, prompting her to place herself as a bulwark against every totalitarian temptation, as she shows man his integral and definitive vocation[61]. By her preaching of the Gospel, the grace of the sacraments and the experience of fraternal communion, the Church “heals and elevates the dignity of the human person, ... consolidates society and endows the daily activity of men with a deeper sense and meaning”[62]. At the level of concrete historical dynamics, therefore, the coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be discerned in the perspective of a determined and definitive social, economic or political organization. Rather, it is seen in the development of a human social sense which for mankind is a leaven for attaining wholeness, justice and solidarity in openness to the Transcendent as a point of reference for one's own personal definitive fulfilment.

Notes: [60] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 40: AAS 58 (1966), 1058. [61] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2244. [62] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 40: AAS 58 (1966), 1058.

[Initials and Abbreviations.- CSDC: Pontifical Council for Justice And Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church; -  SDC: Social Doctrine of the Church; - CV: Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in truth)]